VP/HP for Martial Characters?

FireLance

Legend
Just throwing out an idea here, which I think might address the issue of martial "healing" and making the power sources (or at least the martial power source) more distinctive.

Let's say martial characters have a Vigor Reserve equal to the number of healing surges they would normally have. At the start of each adventuring day, and during each short rest, they can spend a point from their Vigor Reserve to gain a number of Vigor Points (VP) equal to one-quarter their normal hit points.

Damage is usually taken off VP first, before being taken off hit points, but the DM may rule that certain types of damage (such as ongoing damage) bypass VP.

When an attack is completely absorbed by a martial character's VP, he may choose for that attack to affect him as if it had missed, apart from the VP loss. Hence, an attack that deals damage and dazes the target would not daze a martial character if the damage dealt was less than his VP and it had no effect on a miss.

A martial character's VP is normally capped at one-quarter of his normal hit points. However, when he is reduced to half hit points or less, his VP cap increases to half his normal hit points. The increased sense of danger inspires a temporary increase in the martial character's ability to dodge attacks - until he runs out of Vigor Reserves and/or hit points, anyway.

A martial character can use the Second Wind action to spend a point from his Vigor Reserve and regain VP equal to one-quarter his full normal hit points, subject to his current VP cap.

A martial character's Vigor Reserve is replenished when he takes an extended rest. Hit points are recovered more slowly, at the rate of (level/2, minimum 1) per extended rest.

The net effect of these changes is that martial characters, when fresh, would have more effective hit points than characters of the other power sources. However, because VP act as a buffer and actual hit points lost can only be recovered slowly, or through magic, the number of effective hit points they have at the start of each fight would tend to go down over the course of an extended adventure. However, their ability to use VP to turn hits into misses (apart from VP loss) means that they are also better at avoiding conditions.

One downside is the need to track a separate pool of effective hit points, especially since martial characters have traditionally been less complicated than arcane and divine characters.

Astute readers may have noticed that this is essentially the 4e healing surge system, with some mechanical and flavor tweaks to avoid the issue of martial "healing".

Thoughts?
 

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Why only martial characters?

Seems to me a simple vitality/wound approach accomplishes the same thing with less complexity and no need for special actions or per-time resources. I think most of the complainers would be silent if vitalty was split off from physical wounds. You can do all kinds of things to vitality without breaking people's suspension of disbelief.
 

I liked the idea of Vitality/Wound points from Star Wars d20, though the chance of instant death 5% of the time, everytime you faced an attack roll (even from stormtroopers!) was a dog's breakfast.

Aside from that, the problem with a vitality point system is that I (and most people) want to say "I hit you!" with a successful attack roll, not "I tired you out a little bit". It becomes an itchy and scratchy cartoon if you pay close attention to what the DM's and players are saying, but that's D&D for you.

I'm also not sure that a vitality system would be a good way to reintroduce healing surges. I like healing surges because I like playing D&D heroes as action heroes. When a healing surge gets blown the character is like John Maclean, who is able to get shot in one scene and leap out of a skyscraper attached to a firehose in the next. When an action surge gets blown, it is because a hero ignores the wounds, or the wound upon closer inspection is more trivial than it appears.

For other people though, their characters aren't action heroes. Battles are dangerous and messy affairs, and it is only because of divine intervention that people aren't laid up for months nursing their wounds. For those people, any vitality system or healing surge system is going to drive them nuts.

Those of us who like healing surges generally hate the reliance on clerics or the trivial use of magical healing and ressurection so that it is mundane rather than miraculous. However, healing surges and the powers system seem (anecdotaly) to be part of 90% of why 4e "doesn't feel like D&D" by the non-adopters. So I think we have to accept that healing surges are probably going to be a very optional rule in 5e, if it comes back at all.
 

Why only martial characters?
Because with any other power source, you can replace healing surges with a magical or at least supernatural ability to restore hit points, e.g. cure personal wounds for the Divine power source, or cell adjustment for the Psionic power source.
 

Why only martial characters?

In addition to what Firelance said, it also gives Martial Characters a very unique mechanic.

One of my complaints about 4E was that the power sources (aside from Psionics) didn't offer anything mechanically different from each other. The Martial, Arcane, and Divine Power Sources should feel radically different from each other. This might be one way of doing that.

Edit: Complaint is too strong of a word. Missed Opportunity is better.
 
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